The Nashville Statement (First Hour), Racialism Dividing the Church (2nd Hour)

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00:32

Well greetings welcome to the dividing line just let you know straight up We're having more

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Cox communication seems to be having problems these days you may have noticed that Jeff Durbin's program got cut off the internet was cut off right in the middle of it and We're having speed problems as well bandwidth problems.

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So In in all probabilities, we'll have to be uploading later on But I can't let that disrupt the attempted

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Effort that I'm going to make to address two pretty important topics today And so hopefully you will be able to find it to be useful

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If you have to listen to it at a later time or something like that I that's fully understandable if it starts and stops and things like that the two things

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I want to address today evidently Al Mohler is now giving you sort of a Bird's -eye view of the new briefer briefing.

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Have you noticed it's a briefer briefing this year This season it's only about 16 minutes. It was getting up to 22 before and so But he gives you sort of a idea of what we're gonna be talking about today.

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So on the program today We need to talk about the Nashville statement.

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Even the mayor of Nashville is very unhappy that it's called the Nashville statement, but it's the

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Nashville statement and Then after a difficult topic such as that yet an important topic such as that we need to discuss a

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Movement in the church that is becoming more and more bold and open in its statements

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That is fundamentally a a racialism movement It is a movement that deals with races as a whole

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Which I consider to be racism When you when you actually think that people can be actually categorized on the basis of the melanin count of their skin

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This is racism and it's happening in the church It's just happening in reverse and it's happening with the support of a lot of leaders in the church they've bought into the critical race theory and the

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Non Christian worldview that underlies much of what is being said. We'll look at some of the

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Articles an article that was being promoted by a well -known evangelical just yesterday That just simply talks about whites as a whole as if there is such a thing there isn't such a thing

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I mean, I'm sorry there just isn't but the the movement that people are promoting that is

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Making it sound like this is a good thing to be Promoting this within the church.

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It's it's very troubling. So Over The past couple days it has been a truly amazing thing

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To watch The response to the Nashville statement.

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I had no idea this was going on I was not asked to be involved not asked to sign.

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In fact, it took me quite some time to Even Get my signature on it

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Because the system didn't want to talk to me the system refused to send me

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Anything that I needed as far as I guess you had to Get you had get an email and you had to verify the email and stuff like that.

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Just wouldn't send me any emails I even tried multiple email addresses and eventually They put up another place where you could you could sign that way.

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It didn't have to send you an email So I I did sign it and let me just say by the way

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I was informed this morning that there are people who saying they're not gonna sign it because there are people involved with CBMW Who believe in eternal subordination of the

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Son and Therefore you shouldn't sign the statement and I'm like What does that have to do with this?

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I I I don't believe in the eternal subordination of the Son I don't believe in in that stuff.

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But what does that have to do with this? I don't get it Some people get a hold of a bone and just won't let go and this is this the different subject.

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This is about Sexuality and God's purposes and things like that and need to make a differentiation there

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So I did sign it and it has nothing to do with Trinitarian theology or anything else It speaks to one thing and it's speaking to this issue what we have seen in the response that has come from this is

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Absolutely astounding to me It shouldn't be but it's astounding to me first of all the level of irrationality in the opposition to it

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Misrepresentation utter lack of concern for accuracy what you see in the secular and Apostate and that's what

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I'm sorry. You might say well, that's that's not nice of you to say When you claim to be a

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Christian and You Ignore Jesus's words

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You ignore his teaching and you subject his authority in his teaching to a surface level shallow

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Citation of a couple of different verses upon which you've done no meaningful exegetical work

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When you do that, I call that apostasy When you when you claim you're representing

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Christ and yet you utterly violate his teachings. I call that apostasy and We have numerous apostate denominations that no longer believe and teach that Jesus Christ is truly

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God in the flesh the truly Died upon Calvary's tree that there is a purpose.

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There's divine revelation. There's no resurrection. These are apostate denominations They are not Christian denominations.

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They may have been Christian denominations at some point in the past but they aren't any longer and Those groups

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Obviously responded with with vitriol and feigned shock and sadness and everything else and Matthew Vines and and all the others who

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Represent quote -unquote Christian homosexuality of which there is no such thing Of course, you know put out their statements.

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What a sad sad day and and all all that kind of stuff That I guess is to be expected but the level of irrationality on the part of the individuals from the left

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Whether religious or non -religious was was truly astounding there was not almost any meaningful interaction with the reality of the fact that this is a biblically grounded statement, this is a statement that flows from Meaningful biblical exegesis that there is deep

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Thought behind this and hence that you are in essence saying we openly reject

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Biblical teaching we reject the lordship of Jesus Christ We reject that that someone lived 2 ,000 years ago years ago has anything to say to where where we are today

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So when you when you consider The the anger and the hatred of the totalitarians and The fact that in our society what we saw in the response to the

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Nashville statement is the fact that you simply cannot state openly a commitment to biblical morality ethics and most importantly and I think we need we

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I Think there needs to be a change in the way that we are approaching

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This issue and how we address this issue Some of the terminology that we use when we talk to talk about You know stuff like You know, we use the term traditional marriage

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I just chafe when I hear that. I mean, I get it. I understand what it means but How about natural marriage?

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How about? Designed marriage. How about something that that instead of routing the concept in?

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You know some type of human construct like a tradition root it in creation because that's where the

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Bible roots it root it in the fact that God defines these things because the the conversation

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Absolutely closes down the idea of anything outside than the the natural realm any longer and If we allow that to happen if we do not allow the light of God into This issue if we do not keep that light brightly shining and placing that pressure upon the creature

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Because that's what we all are. We're all creatures the one the one contact point There is no neutral point the one contact point we have with everybody is the fact that they are created in the image of God and So that you're talking to a creature who in some way or another if they're denying

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Biblical truth if they are denying the Lordship of Jesus Christ, they're suppressing the knowledge of God and so you need to bring that pressure to bear and The best way to do that is not in a surface level way

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But by constantly making sure that the grounds of your presentation and the grounds of the

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Argumentation are are going to be understood in that way. I'm just gonna

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Put Twitter and the channel down. I realize we're having issues and it's just gonna be a massive Distraction to me to be seeing that we're doing that so I realize risk after record it and we'll just we'll just do the best

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We can from there and if you have any complaints, please call Cox communications

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Tell them to get the internet fixed in our area of Phoenix we pay to have real high speed and right now it looks like we've got modem level speed as in 24 -hour

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Bob anyway So the the response has certainly

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Demonstrated for me The the area we're moving into very very quickly and that is the area where we will simply not be allowed to express any kind of Christian ethical statement within social media and within society itself.

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I Have complained for a long time about hate crimes when when that that concept first arose decades ago

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I said at the time who are we to try to read men's hearts that this is dangerous well now we see why it is so tremendously dangerous because now this is going to be used and utilized as a mechanism

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Once you have a society cut loose from God cut loose from objective morality then the society determines what is moral and therefore on the basis of that Since there's no longer the idea of the necessity of Liberty the necessity the expression of human concepts meaningful interaction we see on the on the college campuses right now a total shutdown total shutdown of any meaningful intellectual exchange of ideas

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Those young people Which we call snowflakes today. It'll be illegal to call someone a snowflake within 20 years

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I assure you Those people we call snowflakes today

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Will be in charge of the legal system 2025 30 years from now and unless something happens some type of National disaster war famine disease.

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Those are the type of things that change Societies and and cure them of this kind of foolishness

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We will see them utilizing the force of government to silence anyone who would challenge their totalitarian views

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They can't argue these points They only get offended or cry You would think that someone who just simply breaks down and cries wouldn't be much of a threat

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But when they have political power they they are So we see this on the wild -eyed left

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But then as we look at some of the others I looked at you know some of the tweets some Some are absolutely expected.

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Rachel held Evans is such old news now when it comes to apostasy Stating that sexual purity is necessary for salvation as legalism plain and simple

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Well, if of course you mean by that that you have to clean yourself up And that your sexual purity is the basis of your salvation, obviously

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But since that was in response to the Nashville statement, that's not what the national statement said Rachel held

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Evans has a long history of not getting what is being said or twisting it from the leftist perspective

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Sexual purity is necessary for salvation. That's why we need Jesus Christ. That's why you need is imputed righteousness, etc, etc

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But the very idea of defining sexual purity, that's that's where people totally losing it a woman by the name of Rachel Meyer yesterday tweeted

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The Nashville statement is one more reason folks are leaving Christianity in droves Fear based theology breaks my heart infuriates me fear based theology

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What do you bet Rachel Meyer is not big on the Old Testament? Probably not big on the

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Mosaic law probably not big on Actually, there's nothing in the Old Testament She could possibly be big on when you think about it and hence probably not big on much of Jesus teaching

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For the obvious reason that Jesus teaching likewise is based upon that and he honors the

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Old Testament and things like that's problem Then she also says This is not the

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God. I know or believe in love over law friends who are feeling outcast There is a whole tradition of progressive

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Christianity for you. Yes. There you go progressive Christianity It's X and T Y now

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I know that that's supposed to represent Christ But there isn't really any Christ in at all and then check out queer embodiment and echo feminist theologies

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There is a place for you. You're a beloved child of God You are perfect as you are

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You are perfect as you are I Don't remember

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Jesus saying that in fact, I seem to recall him calling for everyone to repent or perish actually

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So the idea of being perfect as you are is not something that the Jews the Bible taught

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There's a lot of fake fraud Jesus's running around the internet today And they're being promoted.

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Well both of these by women's women named Rachel so much for the and this echo

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Feminist theologies. I haven't seen my daughter addressing Echo feminist theologies yet.

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I might have might have missed that but it's it's possible. She's gotten there I don't know but the the echo

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Feminist theology that's that's frightening to me the very idea What did the

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Nashville statement say that is so horrific and terrible? Let's find out

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There's only 14 statements of affirmation and denial that doesn't take long to work through and Is any statement is

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Any statement perfect does any statement covering one of things that this really bugged me recently about a

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Lot of my critics well, one of the one of the elements of criticism has been well in This particular situation you didn't mention this part this part this part this part this part this part of Christian theology as if every single time you open your mouth you are going to spew forth a

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Systematic theology that's going to in a balanced way cover every single aspect of the gospel That's if as if anyone ever does that I could

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I'm thinking of one particular critic that I'll respond to tomorrow I could take any one of this person's sermons and Absolutely contend them bright based upon his own standards because no one ever

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Covers everything in one presentation. It's not possible to do you could never Focus upon something or go to any depth if you had to do it in that way

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So the same thing's true miss there's only 14 sections to this. This is a huge area Look at look at Bob Gagnon's book on the subjects big book.

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You can cover a lot of stuff and No one's ever gonna be able to cover all of that. So could

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I would I have liked to have seen a discussion of the disordered nature of Homosexual desires.

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Well, yes, I would Might there have been people who might have been impossible to bring

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Any kind of That's mine, you know, oh you like that.

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Oh Okay What maybe it was because there was the sometimes the window over there is a distraction

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But maybe there there were differences between the people and it's sort of like in the

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Westminster Confession of Faith There were people who wanted the Westminster Confession to refer to the act of impassive obedience of Christ But it doesn't because there were people in the assembly that did not agree

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And so they couldn't get it through and so they had to go with a less specific statement Which has caused problems down the road.

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Well, maybe that was the case here. I don't know. I Don't know what kind of conversations took place. I have no idea.

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But anyway Article 1 we affirm that God has designed marriage to be a covenantal sexual procreative lifelong union of one man and one woman as Husband and wife and is meant to signify the covenant love between Christ and his bride the church

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Immediately the world says irrelevant to us Covenants God We are secularists.

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We don't care. It's irrelevant to us and We say you're made in the image of God and you're gonna stand before him.

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This is this is where Western culture has has Completely cut itself off from the foundation that made it great and the foundation made it strong the foundation allowed it to survive through so many

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Difficulties and changes and the Industrial Revolution everything else Once you embrace that naturalistic materialism once you get rid of God then

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You don't have anything else and the statement doesn't make any apologies for this Marriage is something that God gave to us and this is why mankind has no basis for rejecting

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God's purposes and And redefining as is happening in Australia with the plebiscite down there in regards to Redefining marriage they talk about marriage equality as we said here

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That's a lie has nothing to do with equality any man and woman want to get married can get married. That's a marriage equality

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It's a redefinition of marriage so that you completely change its fundamental nature purpose origination foundation everything

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Complete change of the society. That's that's what you're talking about So covenantal very very important element not contractual covenantal different thing sexual

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God designed the sexual aspect of marriage procreative Lifelong union so in other words not temporary type things so and so forth of one man and one woman heterosexual

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Monogamous husband and wife words that actually still have meaning in this context Which I would argue in the modern context where you have women being called husbands and men being called wives

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That this is a fundamental destruction of the meaning goodness and purpose these words

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And it's meant to signify the covenant love between Christ and his bride the church again Does the world says that's just pure Christian theology doesn't matter to us.

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It's irrelevant But if Jesus Christ is who we claim he was if that grave is empty

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Then that empty tomb means that every person in 21st century every nation every government every legislator

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Lives in light of the empty tomb and under the authority of the one who left that tomb.

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I Mean, that's that's what we're saying. That's that's a radical claim. I understand. It's a radical claim Christianity is a radical faith and The days when that radical nature could be dismissed and ignored are passing very very quickly

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We deny that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual polygamous or polyamorous relationship

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So in other words, that's just the opposites of all the all the positives that were made in the affirmation

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We also died that marriage is a mere human contract rather than a covenant made before God And so this this is the secular perspective that this is a merely human contract and Hence can be homosexual polygamous polyamorous

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It doesn't matter because there is no external authority that defines the nature and categories of this relationship

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And so this is the historic Christian perspective. This is what Christians Despite all of our theological differences on other issues.

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This is what Christians have believed From the beginning in regards to marriage and yet How long will we be able to actually state that that is a relevant truth for everyone without suffering the consequences article 2

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We affirm that God's revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage so this is a

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Statement of purity Both Before marriage outside of marriage and then fidelity faithfulness within marriage

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We deny that any affections desires or commitments ever justify a sexual intercourse before or outside marriage nor do they justified any form of sexual immorality, so this is a positive and a negative statement in regards to the purity of that monogamous relationship that it does not allow for Trists and adulterous relationships fornication

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Any kinds of desires that go beyond what God has provided in other words God has the right to limit

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The expression of human sexuality, which is a great heresy in The Western world now, it's great heresy

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It's a great heresy in mind of many Christians that God has the right to limit as as creator not so as to Deny to man any level of happiness, but because God knows what is best for man because he is our creator

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He is he has the right to limit the expression of that sexuality Article 3 we affirm that God created

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Adam and Eve. Well, this is obviously done by conservatives these days The first human beings in his own image equal before God as persons and distinct as male and female

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So obviously once you abandon complementarianism once you abandon the concept of Maleness and femaleness being good things in God's sight and that they are different things

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You have no basis for a defense of Christian marriage Christian morality and sexual ethics and things like that and every single

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Egalitarian denomination that has gone this direction has collapsed on these issues. It's just falling apart Because this is this is this is a this isn't a a cliff

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This isn't a hill to slide down or a cliff to jump off of it's a it's a high diving platform

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There's only one place to stand once you step off of that. You're going down. That's just that's just all there is to it and So again the idea

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God created article 2 said God revealed so revelation creation

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What we're seeing in the wild backlash From people like Jonathan Merritt.

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I'm gonna look at Jonathan Merritt's article a little bit later on When you

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Listen to what these people are saying. They don't really believe in a revelation. They don't really believe that God is creator They don't believe that God has spoken with clarity on these issues these these are fundamental areas of disagreement and They have practical ramifications when it comes to this issue of Sexual morality ethics and of course now we're all starting to see

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That at one time we sort of thought of morality and ethics is that stuff that's out there. This is impacting clearly the very fabric of society around us

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Article 3 we deny that the divinely ordained differences between male and female render them unequal in dignity or worth well, obviously

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But then again, this is still part of the compatibilistic egalitarian

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Argumentation is The fundamental argument of the other side is that if you recognize role differences you're creating inequalities this term inequality has become such a buzzword in our modern day and Yet almost nobody on the left ever thinks about what that means ever thinks about the stupidity of the position they take

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We all must be equal Well, you know what when I was in school and we played basketball

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We weren't equal We weren't equal There there were some guys that were a foot taller than me and I could sit there and they could hold the ball up and I could jump up and down till the cows came home

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Now that the sad thing is the people on the left Think that that's why we shouldn't play basketball

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Because because we just all need to be equal. No, we don't The funny thing is we need to celebrate

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Diversity by getting rid of it. It's just I The insanity of the modern world and the incoherence of the leftist is

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Only explainable in my opinion as a part of God's means of bringing

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Western culture to its knees in judgment for the light that it is experienced and the darkness that it loves

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Western culture has been bathed in God's light and blessing and loves the darkness and So God's what is what does

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God say? In second Thessalonians, there's that you know, and since it's buried in sort of a

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Eschatological prophetic text a lot of people ignore it. But if you refuse to love the truth

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God will cause you to love the lie there's there's no there's no neutrality as As creatures we are called to love

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God and therefore what must we love his truth? If you refuse to love that truth, guess what? He's gonna do to you righteously, he will cause you to love a lie and You look at the zeal of The left in Attacking this statement.

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There's only one explanation for that despite itself itself evident clarity and and And truthfulness, there's only one explanation for it and it's it's supernatural

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God's judging Article 4 we affirm the divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect

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God's original creation Design and are meant for human good and human flourishing.

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I think Al Mohler had something to do with this Human flourishing that but what

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I'm what I'm surprised is in the PDF version. There's no little trademark after human flourishing

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And I didn't have to pay anything to albertmohler .com to to say those words. So But it is a good phrase,

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I mean it does it does sort of capture In in a way what we what we need to be saying

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Divinely ordained differences between male and female Reflect God's original creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing.

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They also make for really good marriages. I Don't want to be married to another guy Okay Not interested bad for me bad for the other guy,

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I want married to a woman and it's not just because She looks a whole lot better than that guy because there's things about womanhood that a man needs and vice versa

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These are things this is how God designed us and it takes now

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You know 24 25 years of public education and then university education to Numb your mind enough to ignore the simple reality around you and then you've got to keep

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You know, you got to you got to keep that type of stuff up later on in life or eventually you start going

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Stuff I was taught doesn't seem to make much sense You know, that's because we're made in the image of God and the truth gets through to us

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It does get through to us. We deny that such differences are result of the fall or are a tragedy to be overcome.

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I Or a tragedy to be overcome

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I haven't I haven't read the people who say that male and female differences are a tragedy to be overcome but evidently they're out there

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I I I read a lot of heresy, but I just didn't run into that article 5

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We affirm that the differences between male and female reproductive structures are a result of the fall structures are integral to God's design for self -conception as male or female.

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Can you believe we're having to put statements out about this? I mean, just a few generations ago, no one would have ever thought that a group of theologians,

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Christian theologians, would have to say, you know, the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God's design for self -conception as male or female.

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I mean, this is such an obvious reality, it's such a basic truth that you would think, but not in our day, not in our day, not when you're sending first graders to the principal for mis -gender -pronouning, mis -pronoun -gendering,

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I don't know, it's so insane, somebody, yeah, you gotta actually point out that the plumbing matters, yep, and shockingly, shockingly, and I don't think you should send the kids out of the room for this, but if you look at the structures, they go together.

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That's sort of what made that KLM thing a couple weeks ago, where they were talking about the seatbelts, it's like, hello, hello, basic reality just smacked you in the face because a seatbelt, you know,

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I know seatbelts, I know seatbelts, next month, for the first time in my life,

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I will earn straight up, straight up executive platinum flight status on American Airlines.

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I mean, that's the top end, you know, and that means, you know what I've done a few times this year? Yeah, I've stood in a lot of lines, a lot, yep,

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I have probably pushed, I wonder how many miles I've pushed my luggage now, that'd be something to think about,

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I'd have to figure that out, but that's not what I'm talking about, I've put seatbelts on, yep, and if you grab the male end from the seat next to you and try to use it with the male end on this side, you're going to die if the plane has a problem, and if you do the female female, same result, you're going to die, but I have managed, without even really paying attention to the safety video, which

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I don't really pay attention to anymore, I'll be honest, I've been able to put my seatbelt on for thousands and thousands and thousands of miles, yep,

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I've been able to do that, and it's because I understand that equipment is designed to work in particular ways, and when you look at the male and female anatomy, that's a design thing right there, yep, that's a design thing, very clear.

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We deny that physical anomalies or psychological conditions nullify the

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God -appointed link between biological sex and self -conception as male or female. Well yeah, physical anomalies, so there can be some physical anomalies within the normal range of genetics,

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I mean you look at the range of femaleness and maleness, and there are little guys that aren't overly masculine, and there are some big ladies that are quite strong, but still that little guy and the big lady can probably have a baby together, but a big lady and a little lady can't, and a little guy and a big guy can't, because that's not how they're designed.

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Or psychological conditions, yeah, and this is where of course, it's not a psychological condition, it's perfect and natural, and this is of course where every generation before ours has recognized it was a psychological issue, someone thinks it has male anatomy and things that are female, you go, gotta get them some help, because they aren't thinking straight, and now it's all the rest of us are not thinking straight, and we need to adopt their thinking, that's how insane

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Western culture has become, and it is, it's insane, that's an actual clinical observation, we are living in a day of established governmental cultural social insanity, that's what we're looking at.

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Article six, we affirm that those born with a physical disorder of sex development are created in the image of God and have dignity and worth equal to all other image bearers.

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Some of you may remember, was it two years ago? Yeah, right around just over two years ago,

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I went on the Dr. Drew show, which no longer exists, and had some interesting conversations with people who are confused as to whether they are male or female, and actually they're not confused, they're in rebellion as to God's purposes in their lives, and in that particular process,

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Dr. Drew of course responded to Jesus' words in Matthew 19 with, well, what about people have this type of genetic disease or that type of genetic disease or this type of, you know, chromosomal aberration or things like that, and as I said at the time, this is a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of people, we should be sensitive to their reality, but to take their incredibly rare genetic disorder and use that as a weapon to defend simple sexual rebellion on the part of individuals who have no genetic aberrations whatsoever is to abuse them and to abuse their difficult situation.

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Those people should be honored, they should, they have dignity, worth equal to all their image bearers, people should come alongside them, but they really have been abused by the left in attempting to use their existence as an argument for the rebellious activities of a much larger group of people that do not share their genetic issues.

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They are acknowledged by our Lord Jesus in his words about eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb. That's an interesting interpretation,

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I mean, I certainly would cover part of that anyways. With all others, they are welcome as faithful followers of Jesus Christ and should embrace their biological sex insofar as it may be known, and obviously there are, again, a small number of people who, because of duplication of chromosomal aberrations and things like that, are intersexed.

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Very small number, very, very small number. Normally, genetic aberration on that level results in death, but when it doesn't, then yes, and what's happened in history past in that context has been the idea that you choose what you want to live as, and you adopt that, and the people around you assist you in so doing.

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But again, this is a very small percentage of people. We deny that ambiguities related to a person's biological sex render one incapable of living a fruitful life in joyful obedience to Christ.

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Well, that seems to follow rather clearly. Article 7, we affirm that self -conception as male or female should be defined by God's holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.

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And then the denial is, we deny that adopting a homosexual or transgender self -conception is consistent with God's holy purposes in creation and redemption.

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Now, I agree with all that, but this self -conception thing, the language seems a little ambiguous to me.

39:45

I would like to have something that basically says that our self -conception, if it is to be truthful, must be in accordance with the reality of God's creation, that we do not have the right and authority to establish a self -conception outside of God's creative decree.

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That's what I think would be the best way to say that. But here it says it should be defined by God's holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.

40:21

So it's creation, redemption, revelation, all those are right there.

40:27

I would just like to have this self -conception thing explained a little bit more, especially because it says we deny that adopting a homosexual or transgender self -conception.

40:38

Again, it's sort of like we have the right to do that. It would be nice if there was a statement that we do not have the right to adopt any self -conception that is in opposition to reality itself.

40:51

We are not the makers of reality. We are creatures, and God determines the context around us.

40:59

Article 8, we affirm that people who experience sexual attraction for the same sex may live a rich and fruitful life pleasing to God through faith in Jesus Christ as they, like all

41:09

Christians, walk in purity of life. We deny sexual attraction of the same sex as part of the natural goodness of God's original creation or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel.

41:20

This is where I wonder if some of the earlier drafts or discussions had some kind of statement that same -sex attraction is a fundamentally disordered and, in fact, rebellious and sinful thing.

41:44

Because there are a lot of Christians, they will say, no, no, no, no, no, no. There are people who simply experience this.

41:52

It is neither. As long as you don't act on it, there's nothing wrong with it. And this is where I have to part company with a lot of folks.

42:03

When you're talking about a natural attraction between a man and a woman, it is natural for a husband to desire his wife and vice versa.

42:13

It is not natural for a man to desire the man next door. That's a fundamentally disordered desire.

42:22

It is a difference in object and nature of desire that simply can't be ignored any more than a desire for a non -human sexual partner, bestiality, would likewise be fundamentally disordered.

42:45

A desire for a child as a sexual partner, pedophilia, would be fundamentally disordered.

42:54

So I realize that there are areas here where you can push one way or the other, but I think there needs to be something said that, you know, people try to make the argument that homosexuality is no different than gluttony or anything else.

43:12

It's just one sin amongst many. But that's not the biblical testimony. That's not what makes something toevah.

43:19

That's not what when Paul discusses it in Romans chapter one, when he uses it, both male and female homosexuality as an example, it is of the twistedness of the creator -creation relationship.

43:32

There is something that is twisted there that has to be redeemed, has to be put back.

43:37

Well, you could say any sin is twistedness, but it's not. There are some sins that are simply of excess.

43:45

There are some sins that are just direct violation, but they're not twisted. They don't flow from a fundamental alteration of one's self -conception or one's sexual desires or whatever else it might be.

43:59

So I think we need to keep that in mind. So I wonder if there wasn't something there somewhere along the lines.

44:06

We deny that sexual attraction to the same sex is part of the natural goodness of God's original creation.

44:11

Well, there are many people today who say that is. That is now the, quote -unquote, gay

44:20

Christian argument is that this is how God made me. And this is a part of the natural goodness of God's original creation.

44:29

Or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel. So I suppose that's in response to those who are saying, well, someone's a homosexual, then they, you know, you might as well even preach gospel to them.

44:38

They've been given over. Problem with that, of course, is Paul says in 1 Corinthians and such were some of you.

44:47

And so there were converted homosexuals in the church Corinth. So you have to correct the misapprehension at that point.

44:58

I've been talking really fast for 45 minutes and this could be a long two hours.

45:05

Article 9, we affirm that sin distorts sexual desires by directing them away from the marriage covenant and towards sexual immorality.

45:14

A distortion that includes both heterosexual and homosexual immorality. So sin distorts sexual desires, directing them away from the marriage covenant towards sexual immorality.

45:25

That's close to saying that these are disordered desires, but a distortion includes both heterosexual and homosexual immorality.

45:35

That would put both of them in the same category though, where there needs to be, I think, a distinction made.

45:42

We deny that an enduring pattern of desire for sexual immorality justifies sexually immoral behavior.

45:49

So in other words, when you say, well, it's the only desire I've ever had. My desire has only been, so since it's been consistent, then that makes it right.

45:59

And they're saying, no, that doesn't make it right. Article 10, we affirm that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.

46:16

Now, here is where I saw on Twitter, people were saying, you are saying that we are not

46:24

Christians. Well, it depends on who you are. If you're an unrepentant homosexual practicing these things, yes.

46:30

But these are people who are saying, I'm not homosexual. I've never engaged in a homosexual act. I'm faithful to my wife, et cetera, et cetera.

46:35

But I believe that you can be a faithful Christian and you're saying, I'm not a

46:41

Christian as a result. Well, it says from faithful, from faithfulness, what's the term there?

46:47

Christian faithfulness and witness. So I don't think they're attempting to say we can look into everybody's heart and identify where they're coming from.

46:57

But I do believe what they're saying, that you are fundamentally compromising your consistency and witness to Christ and the gospel by approving of homosexual immorality.

47:12

Of course, they wouldn't call it immorality or transgenderism. So they do take a strong stance there.

47:17

And I agree wholeheartedly. We deny that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.

47:31

In other words, what article 10 seems to be saying is, this is a hill to die on and we can't just agree to disagree.

47:38

This is a gospel issue and it is a gospel issue, no question about it.

47:44

Article 11, we affirm our duty to speak the truth in love at all times, including when we speak to or about another as male or female.

47:54

I'm not 100 % certain with that. Okay, we deny any obligation to speak in such ways that dishonor

48:00

God's design of his image bearers as male and female. I get the denial.

48:07

In other words, we cannot stand for being forced to prostitute the language and do what the society is doing, and that is force us to celebrate transgenderism and to acknowledge there is such a thing as transitioning or anything else through the utilization of changing the language and the pronouns that we use of another person.

48:31

But I'm not 100 % certain of the affirmation. Our duty to speak the truth in love at all times, that's biblical, including when we speak to or about one another as male or female.

48:47

I'm sure that there are some people who will find a way to criticize me for that.

49:02

Article 12, we affirm that the grace of God in Christ gives both merciful pardon and transforming power, that his pardon and power enable a follower of Jesus to put to death sinful desires and to walk in a manner worthy of the

49:13

Lord. In other words, we heretically deny one of the central affirmations of the new left society, and that is once a homosexual, always a homosexual.

49:28

God can change people's hearts and he can change their perspectives, and that's a good thing.

49:34

We deny the grace of God in Christ is insufficient to forgive all sexual sins and to give powerful holiness to every believer who feels drawn into sexual sin.

49:42

So, this is just simply an issue concerning the power of God in salvation and what that means.

49:50

Is this other camera working today or are you just sort of bored or just distracted given that we're probably not even streaming anymore?

50:02

Oh, okay. There we go. Oh, by the way, just real quickly, you will notice the

50:08

Warp Core is going a little faster today because we have a little more energy after getting back from London. So, the

50:13

Warp Core is going a little bit. That is so cool. Yeah, I wish it would do something for Cox.

50:20

Maybe if I turn it up, the speed will go faster or the opposite because, hey, it worked until we put that in.

50:27

Maybe Warp Core has put out a kind of really bad interference.

50:33

I don't know. I sort of doubt it. But anyway, Article 13, we affirm that the grace of God in Christ enables sinners to forsake transgender self -conceptions and by divine forbearance to accept the

50:49

God -ordained link between one's biological sex and one's self -conception as male or female. So, the affirmation is a

50:59

Christian has access to the power to accept

51:04

God's creative decree that is seen in the fundamental reality of who you are as a male or female.

51:15

Fundamentally, not up here, but when you look down, male, female, you can figure it out.

51:22

It's not that difficult to do and you can accept that God has made you in that particular fashion.

51:30

We deny the grace of God in Christ sanctions self -conceptions that are at odds with God's revealed will.

51:36

So, we deny that it is a Christian thing to claim that God's grace sanctions or approves of transgenderism.

51:51

Transgenderism is a fundamental denial of the Christian faith and Christian teaching because God has the right to define who we are and how we are to function, and we do not have that right in and of ourselves.

52:04

No question about it. Final Article 14. I wonder why there were 14. We affirm that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that through Christ's death and resurrection, forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person who repents of sin and trusts in Christ alone as Savior and supreme treasure.

52:24

That sounds like Piper. I think Moeller got his human flourishing thing in, and so Piper said, hey, tack this on the end, so we've got the

52:36

Piper thing. That's it. And if I had anything to do with it, somewhere along the lines, it would have said something like, well, what are some of my favorite lines?

52:49

It's not et cetera, et cetera. What's that term I use all the time? There's a term everybody picks on me for, and if the stream was working real well and I had channel up, somebody would be telling me what it is, but we deny that the

53:06

Lord's arm is too short to save or that any sinner is beyond his reach. And so we had

53:12

Denny Burke and John Piper and J .I. Packer. Really? Gotta love

53:20

Brother Packer. He's still signing things. Russell Moore, Wayne Grudem, D .A.

53:27

Carson, R. Albert Moeller Jr., John MacArthur, R .C. Sproul, Francis Chan, Rosario Butterfield, Ligon Duncan, Steve Gaines, H .B.

53:40

Charles, Danny Akin, Alistair Begg, Kevin DeYoung. Got the big names here.

53:46

All the big names. Matt Chandler and Karen Swallow Pryor. Wow. Well, I'd seen her commenting on it, saying she had signed it, but I got the sense in reading

53:58

Twitter that she had signed it afterwards. But anyways, all sorts of folks here.

54:03

They've even got someone with the last name of White, so they could have found... Hey, Robert A .J. Gagnon. All right. Good job.

54:09

Jeff Yorg, president of Gateway Seminary. What? Various and sundry.

54:16

Various and sundry. Yes. Somewhere in there, various and sundry self -conceptions would have appeared. That's where it would have been.

54:23

So there is the statement. Now, it didn't take long for Jonathan Merritt at Religion News Service to...

54:37

And of course, they put a picture of Westboro. Jonathan Merritt is an advocate of homosexuality.

54:45

Doesn't everybody see that? And it's very, very plain and obvious to me what his prejudice and bias is.

54:52

And this is a horrific article. It's badly written. It is prejudice beyond all. It is not fair, but it is an op -ed, so I guess it doesn't have to be.

55:00

But it certainly shows you where he's coming from. And I think people need to recognize where Jonathan Merritt's coming from and recognize that he is a voice for homosexuality within what calls itself conservative

55:13

Christianity. It's only because of his relationship with his dad. I mean, let's just be honest about what the situation is here.

55:19

Let's put it out on the table. We need to talk about things clearly today. And, you know, he says, there is a way for conservative

55:28

Christians, notice it's conservative Christians, to make a strong, winsome case for traditional views of sexuality and gender.

55:34

Unfortunately, the national statement isn't it. What in that statement was even slightly imbalanced? It was clearly biblical, fully defensible.

55:44

I would defend that against anybody. And we have defended that against, you know, you can't get these quote -unquote gay

55:51

Christians to debate. We've challenged Matthew Vines and people like that, and they won't touch a 10 -foot pole because they don't need to.

55:59

It would be bad for them. They've already won the, not the argument, but the decay.

56:05

The decay has given them the cultural platform, not because of meaningful argumentation, but because of judgment, decay.

56:16

This week, a group of prominent evangelicals released a Christian manifesto, which argued that LGBT people who embrace their sexual or gender identity are living in sin.

56:27

Do you see all the presuppositions that Merritt just accepts in opposition to what was said in the manifesto?

56:35

The statement was coordinated by the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and many intelligent, respectable people, including my father, signed it.

56:43

I assume most did so because their convictions, however misguided, rather than hatred.

56:48

Misguided by what? What's to guide their conceptions, Jonathan? May I suggest that your position is not guided by Christian revelation?

57:00

It's not guided by meaningful exegesis? It's not guided by a consistently high view of scripture? It's guided by external things, external things.

57:10

When the statement was released, a broad coalition of progressive Christians, which means people who don't actually really believe that the

57:17

Bible is consistent revelation from God and divine revelation, and God did all that stuff in the Old Testament, that kind of stuff, respond with disbelief, anger, and mourning by turns.

57:27

Mourning. Oh, wow. In other words, they're theological snowflakes. But dissenters can take a deep breath and put their sackcloth back in mothballs.

57:37

A closer look at the statement reveals a number of fatal flaws, which are likely to render it impotent. Well, since it's just basically a summary of what

57:46

Christians always believe, then you need to understand what Jonathan Merritt believes is Christian theology on sexual morality is impotent.

57:54

And the history of similar efforts indicates the national statement will almost certainly fail to shape broader conversations on the issues that address this.

58:00

Well, Jonathan, what if we live in a day like Elijah?

58:07

What if we live in a day where this progressive movement is progressing us right over the cliff into utter annihilation as a society under God's judgment?

58:15

Then won't history actually record it as a statement of faithfulness on the part of those who continue to follow

58:24

Christ even in the midst of judgment upon those who rejected his way? I'm sorry,

58:30

I know enough about history to not buy that you're going to be left behind by history argument. That's really a communist idea that has a communist view of history, not a

58:42

Christian view of history. Because see, God is in charge of what history is going to say.

58:50

Because what history is going to say is going to be what God says it's going to say, because there's a thing called the judgment.

58:56

And so faithfulness to what God has said, not to a progressive culture, is what

59:01

Christians are called to. That's what Christians are called to. Part of the accusations, and it's colluded here, terrible timing.

59:15

You put it out during a flood. You know, the funny thing is, I wonder, yeah, an unprecedented hurricane was ripping through Texas, leaving countless people homeless and many others dead.

59:26

Could I point something out to a lot of us Americans who only care about what happens in America?

59:34

In case you haven't noticed, there is flooding in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal that has killed by at least the count that I've seen, minimally 200 times as many people and made homeless 100 ,000 times more people than anything that's happened in Texas.

59:56

And I'll bet 90 % of you don't even know about it. Haven't even heard about it. Haven't heard a thing.

01:00:05

Well, because that's over there and those are Indians and Nepalese and Bangladeshis.

01:00:14

And somehow I don't see anything in here about that happening. And it's funny, the reality is you put out a statement almost anytime something bad's happening all around the world.

01:00:26

But hey, as long as it's not happening real locally, that doesn't really matter. In case anybody didn't notice, this storm blew up.

01:00:39

It became great in an incredibly fast fashion. I mean,

01:00:44

I know a pastor friend, went out on a cruise. It was just a little depression out there. No one saw this coming.

01:00:52

It formed incredibly quickly. So this whole thing about timing is just absurd.

01:01:01

Absence of repentance. Let's look at the content itself. The National Statement fails as soon as it starts, not because of its assertions, but because of its omissions.

01:01:11

The statement fails to acknowledge, must apologize for Christians' sinful mistreatment of the

01:01:17

LGBT community. So what you do is you reject the fundamental essence of what it said, that there is no

01:01:27

LGBT community. You don't create a community based upon rebellion against God.

01:01:33

You reject that and say, if it's going to get anywhere, it has to start with you all repenting for how you've treated the people who embrace their rebellion as self -defining.

01:01:48

There's no reasoning with someone like this. This is Jonathan Merritt, folks. We need to recognize where this man is coming from.

01:01:54

This is a voice for rebellion against scriptural authority within evangelicalism, period, end of discussion.

01:02:02

Just recognize it. That's what we're dealing with here. Unfortunately, I've gone over the time.

01:02:10

I allotted because we've got more to do today. We're gonna make even more people angry, but I just, this kind of stuff, there's nothing new here.

01:02:18

There's nothing new here. There was nothing new in the

01:02:23

Nashville statement. It's just a smaller and smaller and smaller group because somebody somewhere on the web has been saying there is a tsunami of apostasy coming.

01:02:38

And the response to this has demonstrated this response to this as a, is a,

01:02:45

I told you so moment. There's no question about it. The tsunami of apostasy seen not only in the

01:02:51

Rachel's that I read before, but in Jonathan Merritt and people like that, the number of people standing firm is going to get smaller and smaller and smaller.

01:03:01

And the question for each one of us, Albert Muller says there's gonna be no place to hide. Well, once the question is asked, the number of people that are going to recognize this is a gospel issue, this defines what sin is, this defines what redemption is, this defines what revelation is, the authority of revelation, the whole nine yards.

01:03:23

And since this is a gospel issue, how many of us are gonna stand when it comes down to costing us jobs, access, the continuation of your ministry?

01:03:39

These are the issues. How many are gonna stand with us when we're no longer able to do this? I mean, we're already seeing this happening.

01:03:48

Dennis Prager, Michael Brown, it's gonna happen to us. And I imagine within a very brief period of time, who's gonna stand in the midst of that?

01:03:58

Who's gonna stand when it costs you more in the way of taxes? Who's gonna stand when your civil liberties are torn away from you so people can take all of your physical possessions if you dare continue to believe these things?

01:04:09

It's coming. These people do not believe in liberty. And once they have a completely fundamentally overthrown morality, they will identify what is good as evil, and then they will punish the evildoers for doing good.

01:04:24

That's the mindset. That's the mindset. A lot more to be said about that. A lot more to be said about that.

01:04:31

But I need to change the topic and do what many of my brothers in the

01:04:43

Lord know needs to be done, but just don't wanna pay the price. And I'm not condemning them for that.

01:04:52

This is... I've had many conversations with ministers of the gospel in quiet, in the car, over dinner, away from people, and in hushed tones saying, did you see what happened to such and so church?

01:05:13

Did you see what's going on? Yeah. Man, you can't say anything about it.

01:05:18

I know. You say a word about it, man, it's come down you like a ton of bricks. I said, yeah,

01:05:23

I know. I experienced it a couple of years ago. May of last year, as I recall. We have entered into a time period where if you stand for the biblical teaching that the definitional lens through which every

01:05:47

Christian in every nation of every ethnicity and every skin tone is to look at scripture, at the world around us, at history, and at each other in the fellowship of the faith is solely and only the cross of Jesus Christ and nothing else.

01:06:08

If you stand for that, you are being marginalized. You're being told you're wrong. It's not just the gospel.

01:06:16

That some people, but not all people, some people who are Christians get to have another lens and it's a good lens.

01:06:25

It's an acceptable lens because of what happened to other people, but not to them. Other people like them, maybe ancestors, but they're allowed to have a different lens and they're allowed to put a hue on their lens that changes things.

01:06:40

In fact, it actually allows them to start speaking of other Christians based on skin color as groups out there and to separate from them, to have a different expression of the

01:06:53

Christian faith than them. They're allowed to do that. This is a good thing. We have major names in evangelicalism going along saying, yeah, that's good.

01:07:07

That's good. An article, this is ldrweekend .com.

01:07:19

Speaking the truth in love, ldrweekend .com. It's coming at Covenant Seminary in St.

01:07:27

Louis. Now, for a long time, I've known. Oh, hello. I was just looking at that.

01:07:37

I actually have it down here. My friend down in London says he can get us tally lights.

01:07:48

He needs to talk to you about what program you're using to see if we can figure that out. Covenant Seminary, for a long time, see, my fellow elder graduated from Covenant Seminary, but for a long time, he has said that was the old

01:08:06

Covenant Seminary, not the new Covenant Seminary, which has nothing to do with old covenant versus new covenant theologically.

01:08:15

It has to do with the fact that for the vast majority of theological seminaries, time brings change, and in the vast majority of instances, it is always to the left.

01:08:34

Now, I've talked about this before. I think it has to do with how we do Christian scholarship and some fundamentals that we've embraced in that area that really we shouldn't embrace in that area and stuff like that, but the fact of the matter is that over time, theological seminaries move to the left, and covenant has moved to the left from where it once was, where it was once very, very conservative.

01:08:57

It's not so much anymore, and this is an example of it. So, they're having this weekend, and there's an article that says, a request for our white participants.

01:09:16

Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for registering to join us for LDR weekend. We truly look forward to welcome you to our family reunion.

01:09:22

Please take a look at the event schedule as you make your plans. The LDR organizing team would like to ask our white brothers and sisters to dedicate one seminar hour to anti -racism training.

01:09:42

Only whites need to have anti -racism training? According to this, evidently.

01:09:50

Only whites can experience racism. Don't tell me that there are not a lot of black people that have bought into the lie that only whites can be racist.

01:10:03

I remember very clearly a program years ago, years ago on the

01:10:08

Michael Medved Show. Some reason I was driving in South Phoenix. It must have been coming back from, I think it was coming back from riding

01:10:14

South Mountain. It was in the afternoon, and so it would have been the winter. Anyway, strange how

01:10:19

I remember things like that, but there was a black woman arguing with Michael Medved that blacks cannot be racist because racism requires power and since they don't have power, they can't be racist.

01:10:31

And I said to myself then, a person that lacks the perspective and self -examination and reflection to come to that conclusion is the type of person that will make the worst racist.

01:10:46

The worst racist. And I see that taking place now.

01:10:55

Let me give you an example. Well, a couple examples. There is an organization called

01:11:07

RON, Reformed African American Network. I've talked about them before. They went after me a year ago in May for that video

01:11:18

I put up and Jamar Tisby is a big name now. He's very much promoted by very large names in the reformed community.

01:11:32

Wrote an article called The Downside of Integration for Black Christians. The Downside of Integration for Black Christians.

01:11:42

And as I read through this, I was like, every time

01:11:50

I read anything by Jamar Tisby, I become extremely concerned because there's this, you know, it's like when you're talking with somebody and you're using a lot of the same language, but then you get to certain points and it's just like there's clearly a foundational difference here.

01:12:08

There really is. Here's just some of it.

01:12:15

Let's go back over here. In an integrated church that still is predominantly white.

01:12:23

Now, by the way, African Americans make up what, 10 percent? So on average, Black Christians have to seek out places where we can be ourselves.

01:12:38

Remember, I think this same gentleman, am I not correct in saying this same gentleman after Trump's election said he didn't want to go to church next

01:12:45

Sunday because he was afraid to be around white people? I found that to be a racist statement.

01:12:52

If it was made by a white person, it would be a racist statement. But it's the idea that you can actually use terms like Black people and white people in such a way that it is to be understood as being descriptive of an entire group when

01:13:05

I recognize that that's not true. I think anyone has to recognize that there are

01:13:13

Black people who have certain behaviors and other Black people who have a different behavior and another behavior, another behavior, another behavior.

01:13:22

There's all sorts of perspectives amongst Black people as white people, too. And so when

01:13:30

I find someone using white, Black, Asian, Latino, American, Indian, whatever your buzz phrase is for your quote -unquote community, when

01:13:42

I find people utilizing that kind of language, it really concerns me within Christianity. Because again, within Christianity, these distinctions have been wiped out by the work of Christ.

01:13:52

There is no Scythian. There is no bond or free economic status.

01:13:58

Scythian, that's an ethnicity. That's a national type thing.

01:14:05

Jew, Gentile, bond -free, male, female, these things have been done away with because there is only one lens through which we are to look at each other because it's the only lens that's been given to us in the gospel, and that is the cross of Jesus Christ.

01:14:24

There is one way of redemption, so there can't be multiple different ways. See, this is a fundamental violation of what concerned

01:14:31

Paul so much. Paul recognized there could not be a

01:14:37

Jewish and Gentile Christian church. There can only be one Christian church because there's only one way of salvation, which is the cross.

01:14:45

Once you have a Jewish and a Gentile church, then the cross is no longer the only way of salvation.

01:14:51

This was his focus. That's why, you know, when you think of Romans 3 .23, for all sin to come short of the glory of God, we use that all the time, but the original context was all means

01:15:00

Jew and Gentile. It was denying that there could be any distinction. So, in an integrated church that is still predominantly white, black

01:15:10

Christians have to seek out places we can be ourselves. Yourself is the church.

01:15:20

Change this around. In an integrated church that is still predominantly black, white Christians have to seek out places we can be ourselves.

01:15:28

That's a racist statement. And to me, as a white person, whatever that means,

01:15:35

I mean, as a white person, are you Irish? Are you Scottish? Are you English? I joked, it's only slightly a joke, about my run out to when

01:15:44

I was in London last week. I ran out to where William Wallace was executed by the

01:15:52

English and, you know, immortalized in the film. They didn't show you everything, but what they did to him, you know, disemboweling and fun while still alive.

01:16:02

It's wonderful. But I joked about the fact that I've had my

01:16:08

DNA thing done, you know, my family DNA thing done. 50 % Scottish, 30 %

01:16:14

English, 15 % German. And so 50 % of me was mourning, 30 % of me was rejoicing, and the other 15 % was plotting to the other guys.

01:16:25

So I joked about it because I'm white, but it's just a skin color.

01:16:32

It doesn't mean anything. It's irrelevant. I mean,

01:16:37

I could sit here and go, my Scottish ancestors were enslaved by the

01:16:43

British and say that this has somehow completely changed my life, but it hasn't actually.

01:16:52

It doesn't. You know, I mean, I can look at that and go, yeah, it was a terrible thing at that time.

01:16:58

I'm glad that's not happening anymore. You know, you can get on a train in London and go straight up to Edinburgh, go over to Glasgow, you know, try to figure out what the

01:17:10

Glaswegians are saying, and it's next to impossible anyways, but it's not really English, but that's another story. Uh, no one's going to stop you.

01:17:17

Everything's cool. Everything's fine now, you know? Um, but what is this white thing?

01:17:25

I don't, I don't get what it actually is supposed to be. So what's this black thing? I mean, do you really,

01:17:31

I've, I've not run into too many people that are going, well, I'm, uh, I'm black from this part of Africa.

01:17:37

I'm black from that part of Africa or my Southern African black part is fighting with my

01:17:43

Northern African black part or whatever. I don't get any of it. You got more protection from ultraviolet rays than I do.

01:17:51

That's about it as far as for Christians, right?

01:17:58

No, no, evidently not. Um, but it's just to be ourselves.

01:18:09

These are communities within communities where people of color gather in a shared sense of their past and their present social condition.

01:18:22

I'm just reading the words. This is, you can find this on ronnetwork .org downside -integration -black -christians.

01:18:28

Read it for yourself. This is someone saying that there are appropriate,

01:18:35

I didn't see him saying these, we need to get rid of this stuff, appropriate distinctions and divisions within the body of Christ based upon their past.

01:18:47

I thought that was wiped out in Christ and their present social condition. This is the insertion of unbiblical, extra biblical division within the body of Christ.

01:19:02

It needs to be called out for what it is. That's what it is. Subtitle, black

01:19:08

Christians long for spaces where they can be proud, black, and free.

01:19:16

If you're in the church, sir, Mr. Tisby, if you're in the church, that means you've been set free.

01:19:24

It was for freedom that Christ set us free. If you have the Holy Spirit of God, you've been set free and now you can be humble and a servant and free and your skin color does not matter.

01:19:41

It doesn't matter. God made you that way. You can be thankful for ancestors who served

01:19:49

God and embarrassed by those who didn't just like all the rest of us, just like all the rest of us.

01:19:59

And you know what? You know what the wonderful thing is? I can be proud of black

01:20:05

Christians and you can be proud of non -black

01:20:11

Christians. Because we're all Christians and the skin color doesn't matter.

01:20:18

It's irrelevant. Completely. We want spaces to lament when the next unarmed black person is killed by law enforcement.

01:20:30

Now this sounds to me like black lives matter things, not biblical things.

01:20:39

Now, if I lived in Chicago, then there would be a need in the local church in Chicago to be making sure that everybody, everybody, it doesn't matter what

01:20:50

Latino, Asian, doesn't matter, that everybody in my fellowship was kept safe.

01:20:57

Because of the war going on, they're primarily gang related. It's gang related.

01:21:05

And unfortunately, in many cities in the world, it doesn't matter what color the skin is. As long as there's gangs, drugs, sex trafficking, in other words, sin, there's death.

01:21:16

There's death. But bringing in this, oh, also now law enforcement's the bad thing.

01:21:25

Do you know any law enforcement officers that are friends of yours? How about black law enforcement officers? Where do they go?

01:21:32

Where do they lament or mourn? We want amens from people who understand what it's like when a classmate or coworker insinuates that your presence is only due to affirmative action.

01:21:48

We want to say that's my jam when someone mentions a 90s

01:21:54

R &B song. Clearly the best era for this genre. So the music thing?

01:22:02

You want a subdivision in the church for the music thing? That ain't gonna work at our church because we only got the

01:22:08

Trinity Hymnal song. Hey, I could make a point right there. I love

01:22:15

Keith Green. We don't sing Keith Green at my church. So you know what I do? I sing

01:22:21

Keith Green at home, but I'm not going to divide the church over it. We want to talk about what it's like to be a black believer in a white

01:22:30

Christian congregation. How about just thinking about how you might serve other

01:22:37

Christians, whether they're white, black, Asian, American, Indian, Japanese, Afrikaans.

01:22:44

Oh, can't do that. Whatever they might be. I think that might, that sounds a little bit more like Philippians 2 to me.

01:22:53

I don't remember, you know, and I think about Philippians 2 and I've preached on this topic so many times, Philippians 2, about the

01:22:59

Paul's means for unity and peace in the church.

01:23:05

And it says, look after the things of others, not just after your own things. And there wasn't any division there.

01:23:14

There wasn't anything about race or economic status or those words were addressed to a mixed congregation where you had people in the upper stratus of Roman society and slaves.

01:23:27

And they're all to be concerned for one another on an equal basis. And there's nothing about race or ethnicity to be found.

01:23:37

There were lots of races and ethnicities and there were lots of, there's so much history. Oh man, what

01:23:42

Rome had done to people, what Rome was doing to people. No room for it. None in the

01:23:50

Christian fellowship. None. I mean, they were just supposed to forget. Yep, just the way

01:23:55

God forgot your sins and remove them from the East, far as the East is from the West. Just like God did that, you do the same thing because you've been forgiven.

01:24:03

And if you won't do that, then you don't seem to understand you've been forgiven. Yeah, that's how it works.

01:24:10

That's how it works. But how can black people get this kind of communal strength when all of our gatherings are integrated?

01:24:21

Integration itself is not the problem. The issue is that in many integrated settings, many of the white people don't understand black experiences.

01:24:29

They won't understand the struggle, understand the references or feel the pain and the pleasure of being black.

01:24:36

You see in the Christian church, the commonality is found in being redeemed, not in being black or white or anything else.

01:24:48

This must be called out. It's wrong. It's wrong.

01:24:55

But it's being promoted by big names, powerful names. But that's wrong.

01:25:05

That's not the foundation of the faith. That's not New Testament. This cannot be defended.

01:25:11

Not exegetically, you can't. You can't defend this exegetically.

01:25:19

It's so troubling to me to hear this. All you got to do is reverse the colors. And the level of outrage would be incredible.

01:25:28

Can you imagine a reformed white person writing this and saying, you know, we got too many blacks in our congregation.

01:25:36

We're integrated. We can't do white stuff. People just don't understand our experience as white folks.

01:25:46

What? This is just as absurd. It's just as absurd. I don't care what big names promote it.

01:25:53

It's just as absurd. It's wrong. As much as we love our white brothers and sisters, we don't always want to have to explain the essence of being black.

01:26:06

See this, when you define people based upon their skin color and heritage, this is racism.

01:26:19

It has no place in the Christian church. What binds us together? What is the foundation?

01:26:28

It's a common positive confession in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our union with him.

01:26:33

And what makes the equality amongst believers is the fact that since we are united with Christ, it's his death.

01:26:42

We're looking away from ourselves, not to our skin color, not to our history, not to our quote unquote communities.

01:26:54

In integrated settings with white Christians, we have to unpack basic ideas about the black experience.

01:27:00

We have to talk about privilege, white supremacy, systemic racism, black culture, food and music.

01:27:05

These explanations are exhausting. It's hard to have a 401 level solidarity with people who are on a 101 level of racial awareness.

01:27:13

That is what Votie Baucom calls ethnic Gnosticism. You can't talk about this without the special knowledge that only we possess.

01:27:23

You're level 101. We're level 401. Folks, this is black supremacy. On some level of knowledge, it's black supremacy.

01:27:36

Why isn't this being called out? Why am I the only one? This isn't my specific area, but there's another one.

01:27:46

This one just absolutely blew me away. Last night,

01:27:52

I'm going to name a name here.

01:27:58

I named Martiz B. Thabiti Anyabili. Good old Thabiti. We've spoken at a conference together years ago.

01:28:06

It was on Islam. It wasn't out.

01:28:11

He's tweeting out this article and saying, man, there's this great truth in here. This is incredible.

01:28:18

I started reading it. I'm just going, really? It's called

01:28:25

FeistyThoughts .com. Bring up the original over here.

01:28:35

Someone named Erna. It's titled,

01:28:40

Why I Stopped Talking About Racial Reconciliation and Started Talking About White Supremacy.

01:28:49

All the way through this, it's just white theology, white this, white people that, white people that.

01:29:04

I'm just astounded, absolutely positively astounded at the fact that you've got white.

01:29:16

Since white Christianity is also characterized by a lack of humility, it is not prone to learn from POC, who would clearly be the experts on issues of racism in the church.

01:29:29

It's totally meant to divide. It's totally racist. The language it uses of white people, if you can't see it's racist, then you have been so deeply impacted that you,

01:29:44

I don't even know what to say. I don't even know what to say. Racial reconciliation assumes an innocent reading of history.

01:29:56

Well, that's interesting. There's pictures of white high school students cursing black students.

01:30:04

Of course, most of these people weren't around then, but even if they were, that was a long time ago. I guess you're supposed to just continue to believe those things.

01:30:10

White comfort, white privilege, white supremacy says,

01:30:20

I didn't know white supremacy could talk. The term white supremacy labels the problem more accurately.

01:30:26

It locates the problem on whiteness and its systems. Whiteness. I didn't know whiteness existed.

01:30:37

For these folks, it does. It focuses on outcomes, not intentions. It is collective, not individual.

01:30:43

It makes whiteness uncomfortable and responsible, and that is important. So I want to make whiteness uncomfortable.

01:30:49

Well, this is sort of like searching for the patriarchy. Exactly. What on earth is that? What is it?

01:30:59

Again, in the church, this was being promoted by Thabiti Anambidli as having all this truth in it.

01:31:06

So I guess Thabiti is now okay with the idea of talking about racial reconciliation now, whatever in the world that was.

01:31:14

Let's talk white supremacy. This sounds like a division to me, like people wanting to introduce division into the church, and it seems like everybody else is either just going, okay,

01:31:34

I didn't know I had done anything wrong, but if you say, or the others go, no,

01:31:40

I didn't do any of that, but I'm afraid to say anything because I'm going to be attacked vociferously, and I will be.

01:31:49

You know, it's funny. Let's put it this way. Ron, guys, I know you're already typing on the keyboard.

01:31:56

The blog articles are starting. If you put up a single blog article about this program, when you did not say a single word about the black

01:32:09

Hebrew Israelites that were posting dozens of videos on YouTube showing me being decapitated, murdered, stabbed, disemboweled, hung with devil's horns and sitting in the hellfire, when

01:32:25

I dare take on a movement that ravages black churches in urban centers,

01:32:30

I took them on, you didn't say a word about them. If you put up a single blog article in response without having done that, you're hypocrites.

01:32:38

You're hypocrites, and you know it. How's that for a challenge? I even asked back then, last year when

01:32:48

I was dealing with the black Hebrew Israelites and I was being racially attacked as a

01:32:53

Christian for defending the deity of Christ, y 'all believe in the deity of Christ, right? So I had black

01:33:02

Christian pastors thanking me for dealing with, for someone finally dealing with black

01:33:10

Hebrew Israelites. Why weren't you doing it? You're the Reformed African American network, right?

01:33:17

Why aren't you dealing with a major issue in the black church? I didn't,

01:33:23

I looked through Ron, didn't find a word about the black Hebrew Israelites, not a word, because see that doesn't fit the, fit the meme.

01:33:31

That's not what Ron is about. So if you, if you do a, if you, if you say a peep without having responded to that, well, there you go.

01:33:43

But I want to understand how can people stand on stages today and plainly introduce division into the body of Christ based upon racial and ethnic lines when the scripture says those types of divisions are destroyed in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ?

01:34:11

Well, but, but historically there have been people who haven't seen how to work that out. Well, then force them to.

01:34:19

Don't go grabbing critical race theory and Marxism and cramming it into the church as if that's somehow going to solve something.

01:34:27

Isn't that the same thing? Well, yeah, the Bible may say it, but it doesn't go far enough.

01:34:32

So we're going to grab something else. You're not trusting the spirit of God and the gospel of God to do what, what needs to be done.

01:34:39

That's what you're saying. And somehow Marxism is going to do that. I don't know the motivations of the well -known leaders that are promoting this stuff and are functioning as the doorway through which this stuff, these people are being put on church platforms and giving, you know, going into churches and doing seminars on, you know, white supremacy and calling people to repent of white privilege.

01:35:10

And, and I don't see these people going overseas and going to Asian places and calling people to repent of Asian privilege or going to African nations and telling them to repent of African privilege.

01:35:23

But it's happening here in the United States that it's all about white privilege.

01:35:30

And these articles, if you can't read these and go, you, you can't, you can't talk about whites as if they're a monolithic group.

01:35:43

That's racism. That's as bad as the reverse.

01:35:49

No, no, no. Cause you're in the majority. And if you're in the majority, then it's okay to do that. No, it just means there's all the more divisions, all the more need to recognize the distinctions.

01:36:02

You know, it talks about, we need to be able to do black stuff. I'll be honest. I don't know how to do white stuff.

01:36:08

I know how to do Christian stuff. I suppose I know, I, you know, I know how to do cyclist stuff.

01:36:15

Is that the same thing? You know, when cyclists get together, we talk about weird stuff. Um, you know, uh, getting the best shorts to be comfortable after a hundred miles on a bike,

01:36:25

I guess there's, there'd be some people that really wouldn't care about stuff like that. I suppose. Well, I'm not sure exactly where that broke off, but our system froze.

01:36:35

I'm not sure why, but it just happened. We're having technical issues and that might just be a good indication that, okay, leave it there and make some concluding remarks and hoping to figure out what's going on and, uh, continue on.

01:36:52

I'm sure there's going to be some interesting responses if everything's been recorded anyways, we'll find out one way or the other.

01:36:59

Um, you're not, I, after everything that's happened over the past number of months, you might say you're insane to address this.

01:37:08

I, I don't want to, this isn't, I, this is not my thing.

01:37:14

I have no desire for the, for the, the mindless, um, kinds of attacks that I saw last time from, from people that just knee -jerk flame throwing.

01:37:27

I'm not, I'm not looking for that, but somebody's got to stand up and say, excuse me, but what we're being told here by major leaders in major denominations is actually a fundamental undoing of the biblical categories of what redemption means and how it actually forms the unity of the body of Christ.

01:37:53

And one thing that's interesting to me is maybe the reason

01:37:58

I'm doing this is because I've been traveling so much and I was just ministering in a church in, in multiple, every church

01:38:10

I was in overseas, whether it was in London or in South Africa, in different parts of South Africa, completely integrated, completely multiracial.

01:38:26

And folks, when I stand in that pulpit, I don't care what the color of people is.

01:38:36

They're there to hear the word of God. The spirit of God can make that word of God come alive in anybody's heart.

01:38:42

I don't have to try to think, well, this person's had this experience and that person's, that's the spirit's job, not mine.

01:38:53

Overseas, people look at us like, what is their problem over there? I mean, come on.

01:39:00

We're a minority. We as Christians are a minority. Don't make minorities the minorities.

01:39:09

The gospel's for everybody. The word of God's for everybody. And it never, you know,

01:39:15

I'm thinking about some of the sermons that I, I'm thinking about one sermon I taught. It was on Colossians chapter three, seeking the things that are above, putting your mind upon the things that are above.

01:39:29

And I'm thinking now, as I looked around that room, old, young, white, black, it didn't matter.

01:39:41

It did not matter. That's the beauty of the faith.

01:39:46

And yet we have people saying, well, well, you know, we, we need to have our own alone time because you all just don't get our experience.

01:39:54

And I just want to go, well, excuse us. But that's pretty much what

01:40:01

Peter did when he went off and sat just with the people from James and Paul stood up to him and said, you're not walking straight in accordance with the gospel.

01:40:11

That's what's going on here. That's what's going on here. So that'll be lots of fun to deal with all of the verbal bombs and accusations of ignorance and everything else.

01:40:25

But it's real simple. If you want to accuse me of being ignorant of all your Marxist rhetoric, fine.

01:40:33

If you want to actually make meaningful criticism, exegesis, scripture, the inspired text of scripture.

01:40:47

If it's not based on that, if you're not doing meaningful exegesis, I'm not interested in what you got to say. Sorry. Just, just we're talking here about the nature of the church.

01:40:55

And I believe in this thing called solo scriptura and scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith of church.

01:41:02

So it needs to be in the infallible rule of faith of church. If you're going to make fundamental differences and changes in the church. So bring on the exegesis.

01:41:09

And just like a year ago, May, I saw zip when it comes to meaningful exegesis.

01:41:17

So you want, want to say something, make sure it's scriptural, make sure it's biblical.

01:41:22

Then we can talk about it. Then we can talk about it. I have another clip to play, but since we're having technical difficulties, I'm not even going to bother to try.

01:41:29

We will try to get those things fixed up and next time go from there. So I know these two topics were heavy, not fun to listen to, but needed to address them, needed to address them.